Wow. I need a vacation.

So I'm in the middle of this project right now. It's a feature-length film that I'm editing. My editing period was originally 8 weeks. The production offered to pay me more if I could do it by November 1 (6 weeks instead), so I said yes.

Well, 8 weeks in the first place was a really truncated schedule, and 6 weeks turned out to be psychotic. I've been working basically from the time I wake up to the time the Red Bull wears off, sitting in front of the computer trying to make this happen.

So today I got a call that I needed to take, but the reception in my area has been extraordinarily shitty on the AT&T service. Specifically within about half a mile of my home. So I went out to hop in my car and get some distance.

The car was gone.

We have a private lot behind the townhouse complex where I live, and they "require" a little permit dangling on your rearview to park there. No one actually has them, and with the heat and dryness this summer mine actually broke, and dissolved into a fine powder when I tried to fix it. I'm serious.

I haven't had a chance to get a replacement, so I assumed that it had been towed. I called the towing company, but they had no record of it. The last time I remembered having it was last night, at around 2:30, coming home from a meeting for ANOTHER potential job to follow up on this one. So since it hadn't been towed, it had apparently been stolen.

I called the police to file a claim -- which took about five times as long as it ought to have thanks to the aforementioned reception problems -- then my insurance. On the upside, those processes were not that difficult and it's good to know how to do them, just in case.

Then I spoke my friend Brandon, who was part of the meeting I had remembered coming home from -- it wasn't last night. It was the night before. In the monotony of the day I had completely lost track of yesterday. I just forgot about Thursday.

So I called the towing company again. It wouldn't be on record for today, what about yesterday? Nope, still not there. Still stolen.

Then I remembered: lunch.

See, we have a little strip-mall, within reasonable walking distance, with a Subway and a Panda Express and such. I've been eating in the last few weeks, but I decided yesterday that I should get out of the house, if only briefly, so I decided to go there for lunch. Since it's within walking distance, I almost always walk there, but yesterday I felt I didn't have THAT much extra time to waste on lunch, so I drove.

But, BECAUSE I normally walk there, and because I had a lot on my burned-out brain, by the time I finished ordering (which took forever because everyone on the Subway assembly line was a trainee that day) and eating, I had managed to forget that I had driven there. I walked home. And then promptly forgot yesterday even existed, so in my head, the last time I saw the car was "last night" at 2:30AM.

I called the police back, and my insurance company. The police dispatcher laughed and said "Man, you're overworked." Both of them let me off the hook, no harm no foul.

Still, shit. If I hadn't figured it out so quickly I might have wound up in a lot more trouble. I really DO need a break once this is done. And someone else is going to have to drive me around for a little while.